Heretofore, there has been known a seat management system configured to prepare a seat layout chart defining an association between respective ones of layout positions of a plurality of seats within a floor of an office, a lecture room or the like and a plurality of terminal devices equipped in the respective seats, and manage a position of a seat of a user based on information acquired from each of the terminal devices and the seat layout chart.
For example, there has been known a seated-status display system configured to visibly display a floor map for figuring out a position of a seat in which a staff is currently seated. In this seated-status display system, a seated-status display server stores therein a floor map defining an association between respective ones of a plurality of ports of a network switch used for each floor and a plurality of seats provided with the respective ports.
The seated-status display server is operable to acquire, from each of the terminal devices equipped in the respective seats, information about its port via the network switch, and acquire information about a staff corresponding to the acquired port information, from a directory server. Then, the seated-status display server is operable to store therein the acquired staff information in association with the seat associated with the port in the floor map. The stored floor map is displayed on a display of each of the terminal devices. This makes it possible to figure out a position of a seat in which a user is currently seated.
It has also been known a technique of preliminarily providing an authentication card reader in each seat, and identify whether or not a user is seated in the seat, depending on whether or not reading of an authentication card is successfully performed by the authentication card reader.